“IT FLOATS!” several students and even adults and teachers who don’t normally scream, screamed.

The 23-foot “CHS Sail-N-Sink” cardboard boat built by a dozen Clover High School students in teacher Tom Dissington’s science club did not just float Saturday. It was no rubber ducky. The group did not stop with the monstrosity floating in all its ugly glory.

These nine intrepid students and four adults rowed the boat, with the ugly aerodynamics of a New Jersey barge carrying nuclear waste, a mile on Lake Wylie Saturday morning.

“We just paddled for a mile on a lake in a cardboard boat!” said Myranda Thomas, an 11th grader at Clover. “I have to admit, I was nervous that it was even going to float at all. Nobody knew if it would just sink like a stone.”

After the group spent three months building the boat as a science project, the boat was shuttled to the Allison Creek boat landing by none other than a roll back car wrecker. The 150-pound boat was gingerly lifted by the rowers and dropped with a plop right there next to the dock.

“It floats!” screamed out Dissington.

“But now ya gotta row it!” yelled out a wise guy father of one of the kids, because that father didn’t have to row anything.

So these students and parents got in. Gingerly, slowly, because the boat was built of boxes and a heavy foot would mean a calamity worse than a mine collapse.